Gorgeous Photos Of New York's Classic Diners Before They Disappeared Forever

New York's restaurant scene is thriving, and there's more variety of food available today than ever before.

However, some longtime New Yorkers will argue one important component has begun to disappear: the classic diner.

In the last decade, many of the city's original railcar-inspired, chrome-and-neon-clad restaurants have either been demolished or relocated to cities across the country. Though some remain, there just aren't as many classic joints where you can satisfy your craving for greasy sandwiches and eggs at all times of the night.

The Moondance Diner was built near the Holland Tunnel on Sixth Avenue in the '30s and made appearances in "Friends," "Spider-Man," and "Sex and the City." In 2007 the struggling restaurant was bought and transplanted to a small town in Wyoming, where heavy snow and ice in its first winter caused the decades-old roof to collapse. The owners were forced to rebuild much of the restaurant, and the Moondance closed once and for all in 2012.

Gregoire Alessandrini

Jerry Lewis and David Letterman were once regulars at the Cheyenne, the diner that was hauled away in two pieces to Alabama in 2009. Years later, the Western and Native-American themed restaurant still has no permanent home, while its original site on 9th Avenue will soon be developed into a 13-story mixed-use building. Gregoire Alessandrini

Chelsea's Empire Diner was a haven for quirky artistic types for 34 years until its closing in 2010. Chef Amanda Freitag is planning a still-unnamed restaurant in the space, which was briefly known as the Highliner after the Empire's closing.

The Jones Diner at the corner of Lafayette and Great Jones Streets had dirt-cheap $3 breakfast specials that catered to the factory workers who had eaten there since 1938. It officially closed in 2002.

Gregoire Alessandrini

Cuban-Chinese restaurants like Sam Chinita (also known as "Mi Chinita" or "La Chinita Linda" at different points in the restaurant's history) were not uncommon in the 1960s, when Chinese people fled Cuba at the beginning of Fidel Castro's reign. Gregoire Alessandrini